Hi, i am looking for books that can help me learn about wwii, about its history and events. There are way too many books that I came across and TBH it felt a little overwhelming, I am looking for books that doesn’t fabricate anything and values the historical importance of the war. Your suggestions will of great help, thanks. 🙏
by Patient-Cucumber-407
9 Comments
At Dawn We Slept about Pearl Harbor
These probably not exactly what you were wanting but they are good to read
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Maus by Art Spiegelman there are two volumes of this, I only read the first one
Slaughter House-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Night by Elie Wiesel
The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert E Edsel
The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Anne-Marie O’Connor (this is more modern day issue but it is still dealing with the after effects that happened during the war)
“Inferno: The World at War 1939-1945”, by Max Hastings
“The Second World War”, by Anthony Beevor
“Hirohito’s War: The Pacific War 1941-1945”, by Francis Pike
Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy: “An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa 1943-43”, “The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy 1943-44”, and “The Guns of Last Light: The War in Western Europe 1944-45”
“Retribution:The Battle for Japan 1944-45”, by Max Hastings
Time-Life book on WWii. About 450 pages, tons of photos and diagrams, gives a good overview of the conflict.
-Operation Paperclip by Annie Jacobsen
-Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre
-The Nazi Hunters by Andrew Nagorski
-The Saboteur by Paul Kix
-The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L Shirer
-Prisoners of the Castle by Ben Macintyre
-The Nazis Next Door by Eric Lichtblau
-40 Thieves on Saipan by Joseph Tachovsky
-My Dear Boy by Joanie Holzer Schirm
-The White Mouse by Nancy Wake
-Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre
-Code Name: Lise by Larry Loftis
-The Liberator by Alex Kershaw
-The Bedford Boys by Alex Kershaw
-Scholars of Mayhem by Daniel C Guiet
-Double Cross by Ben Macintyre
-Agent Garbo by Stephan Talty
-The Last Hill by Bob Drury & Tom Clavin
-Against All Odds by Alex Kershaw
-With The Old Breed by EB Sledge
-The Old Breed… The Complete Story Revealed by W Henry Sledge
-Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose
-Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton
-Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre
-Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley
-The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone
-Masters of the Air by Donald L. Miller
-The Storm of War by Andrew Roberts
-The Conquering Tide by Ian Toll
-Twilight of the Gods by Ian Toll
-Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends by Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron
-A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell
-Voices of The Pacific (Expanded Edition) by Adam Makos
-When Titans Clash by David Grant and Jonathan House
-Hitler’s People by Richard J Evans
-A Tomb Called Iwo Jima by Dan King
-The Nazi Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer
-Codename Nemo by Charles Lachman
A World at Arms by Gerhard Weinberg
How We Lived Then by Norman Longmate and The Blitz by Juliet Gardiner.
For the western theater I would start with “The rise and fall of the third reich” by William Shirer. Shirer was a journalist living in Germany right up until war was declared on the United States.
His storytelling is excellent, which makes the book very readable – which is important because the breadth of material he covers is overwhelming. He goes all the way from the beer hall putsch to the Nuremberg trials.
I think the most important thing is that his voice is both uniquely informative AND uniquely flawed/biased in a way befitting a man (and readers) from that era. Much of what he writes is a firsthand interpretation of events and he isn’t afraid to editorialize
*The Complete Maus* – Spiegelman